March 20, 2014... Acrylic studio paintings.

Happy Spring!  It's greening up here, the gardeners showed up today to take inventory and begin the season.  The winds are up, something that I now know is a near constant this time of year, east of the Front Range in Colorado.  A person can almost tell the time of the day by the winds.  They nearly always kick in right at 12:00 noon.  Painter and friend, Dave Santillanes, a native of the area, told me that last week.  I've been paying attention and Dave is right, noon it is!

Why am I painting winter then?  I'm taking a little break from getting all of the paintings that I sold during February ready to ship.  I have all of these very fresh studies in the studio, and the memory of painting them, that I am still in the middle of churning through from last month.  The painting urge hasn't let up, I'm giving it it's needed fix.  There is nothing better than having fresh studies and the memory of the experience to paint from in the studio... except painting them outside!  This weekend is going to be devoted entirely to packing and shipping all of the art sold.  Thanks again to everyone who purchased a painting, or two, or three.  I'm grateful for that support.  

To further complicate my life, I've been painting with Golden Open acrylics in the studio.  I'm not  sure why, except that I like the solvent free aspect of them, the ability to stop and start at any time on a painting, not having to wait for it to dry or stay wet if need be.  I  think that I'm also overdosing a little bit on solvents and driers like Liquin.  

I'm not complaining, but I've noticed that when I'm using a lot of either of those type of ingredients in my oil painting, which I do often now so that I can better control the drying time, I have some issues with congestion, slight headaches and watery eyes.  My plan is to use the acrylics for awhile to see if that clears up.  So far, I'm already able to see an improvement.  If I don't go nuts trying to get a grip on the acrylic monster, I think it might be a good move.  

Working with them is more like what I like about working with pastels... I can lay down paint/pastel, and very quickly work over it.  Immediately with pastel, almost immediately with acrylics.  Glazes, scumbling, are all great  techniques that I like to use in oil painting too.  My patience is getting shorter though, it takes too long for the oils to be ready for me to do that like I want to.  If I had an area to 'rack up' paintings while they dry for these techniques with the oil paints, I could see working on a number of paintings in stages at a time.  I don't.  If I have 4 paintings done, it's crowded in here, and there's no where to add a rack.  

With the acrylics, the drying times of these newer 'Open' acrylics, work right along with me.  I paint pretty fast normally.  The acrylics are almost begging for the painter to do that with them.  So, they and I, seem to be working pretty well together.  Taming the monster that they are, is really getting used to a process of painting with them on their terms.  Once I do that, I love what they have to offer.  Stay tuned...

What I'm posting here are two paintings painted from the two studies I'm also posting.  That's not always a great idea, but for interest, that's what I'm doing.  Don't think that I am trying to exactly copy the studies, I'm not.  The studio paintings evolve from the studies, as you can see, and are usually more complex.  That's the case with both of these.  Field studies are the soul of the experience, the journal of your time, and are why I paint outside.  The studio painting is a further exploration of that memory and experience.  I like both.  Since the grass is greening up, and the snow is long gone, the only way to explore either of these ideas is to do it in the studio from the studies.  I didn't take any photographs in February of the locations I painted, with a couple of exceptions.  So if I'm going to paint up any of the February paintings, it will have to be done only using those paintings as reference, or the photos of them once they're out of my studio.  

Both of the larger paintings are painted on acrylic primed linen.  "Freeze in the Air" is painted on a Frederix linen called 'Antwerp'.  It's one that I've used a lot of over the years, but it's really pricey.   I mounted it on a cradled birch panel, after first putting down two coats of GAC 100 (A Golden Product) to seal the wood, preventing acid migration into the surface of the acrylic paint.  It's a problem with oils and acrylics, but more of a concern with acrylics.  The moisture in can leach out the impurities from the underlying wood as it dries, pulling them towards the wet paint.  That can cause discoloration in the paint film.  GAC 100 seals the wood, providing a barrier between it an the painting.  I glued down the Antwerp using Lamin-All glue.  

The other painting, "Frozen Hollow", was painted on a stretched Utrecht linen (Type 66J) that I've had for many years.  I used to make my own lead primed panels and stretched supports, with RSG and this linen.  For this painting, I stretched it on some heavy duty bars that I first sealed the edges of with the GAC 100, then sized it with one coat of GAC 400, followed by 2 coats of GAC 100.  The GAC 400 is for stiffening fabric, which is nice because without using rabbit skin glue (RSG), it's hard to get that drum tight stretch on linen.  The GAC 400 helps to replicate that somewhat.  Following a light sanding, I applied 4 coats of acrylic dispersion primer (mistakenly called acrylic gesso, it's not gesso), with light sanding in between coats.  

This was a test of sorts... I learned that I prefer the linen mounted on board, and will continue that way when painting with the acrylics.  It's nice to be able to 'lean into' the painting with p.knives and brushes when it's on the board. Can't do that with the stretched linen.  Plus, the whole process of stretching and prepping the linen from the raw state was time consuming and it didn't give me any particular advantage.  I didn't like painting on it as much as I did the glued down linen. I may continue to use the raw linen (hell of a lot less expensive than pre-primed even though it's acrylic priming) and prime it myself. I didn't notice much difference at all, painting on pre-primed vs my priming it.  I used Golden 'Gesso'.  That 's what they call it, it's acrylic primer. 

Thanks for looking in!

"Freezing Fog #2"

Oil - 8x10

"Frozen Hollow"

Acrylic - 20x24

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

"Freezing Fog #3"

Oil - 8x10

"Freeze in the Air"

Acrylic - 18x24

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

Coming soon... A Leap Into February... a painting marathon!

All of the paintings, 112 in total, will be published here on the blog.  If you'd like to see the daily activities and art, please follow my blog by signing up with the email link to the right of this post.
Details to follow in mid January...

The Abstract of the Block In

Whenever I write about painting ideas or methods, just to let you know, I'm only speaking about my own ideas or methods, and how I proceed with them.  There are many other methods and at anytime I may be using one other than what I'm discussing in any particular post. 

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend, who had taken a look at a lot of my paintings, and noticed that I frequently employ the use of a 'lead in' to the picture in the form of a road, shoreline, fence line, or some other linear idea to add a diagonal entrance into the painting.  This is true, they are great compositional tools for doing just that.  She also noticed that I often place that entrance to the right side of the composition.  I looked at some of those and realized she was accurate.  It was a surprise to me, so I began to think about it.  

I am right eye dominant.  You can do a simple test to see which eye is your dominant eye.  Hold both hands out if front of you gripped together as if holding a pistol grip, straight armed, and point your index fingers out in front.  Aim at an object in the near distance in front of you, put the two fingers on the object.  Now close each eye, one at a time.  The object will stay lined up with your fingers when your dominant eye is open, it will move when your dominant eye is closed.  

Back to my right side roads... I don't know this for sure, there are others who have probably studied such things, but I think that because I am right handed and right eye dominant, I tend to favor that side of the composition when it comes to drawing or painting a diagonal, or near vertical, entrance into the composition.  This is all subconscious, I don't purposefully, nearly always, place these entrances on the right side.  But, it would be more awkward for me to reach my right hand across to the left to draw in the same entrance on the left side of the canvas, unless I think about it (which I can guarantee you that I will be doing now) and make that conscious choice.  Also, my mechanical paint applier, my arm and hand, are on my right side... 

This seems to be a mechanical issue because I don't have a problem with placing other dominant compositional items on the left side, it's just this placing the entrance in on the right side that is interesting to me.  

A side note that may be related... When I was younger and skied, I taught skiing and did some casual racing and was coached.  I was always told that my turns, when on my right side downhill ski, were beautiful, very well done.  But when turning onto my left side downhill ski, I was told that I was "blocked" on that side, I don't perform a right hand turn as well.  Could that also be because of a dominance favoring my right?  Don't know.

Enough on that for now, but the way our brains work without our being aware of what they are up to sometimes is fascinating.  And thank goodness for artist friends, our 'third eye' contingency, for being honest in relating what they see in our work.  It's always helpful.  

Getting back to the topic "The Abstract of the Block-In"... To me this is the second most important stage of a painting, be it in the studio or in the field.  The first most important step is forming a Concept, an idea about what you're going to paint.  Without that, you have nowhere to go, not even enough information to get to the Block-In.  Concept is a blog post all by itself.

I use the block-in as the abstract break up of the blank space, the visual reminder of my conceptual idea about where I intend this painting to go.  It can be very complicated, or very simple, very specific or very loosely defined.  Either way, it sets the stage for the next steps in paint application to come.  

This is the way that I am able to see the 'big picture' of my idea for the painting.  If these big idea shapes aren't working, not proportioned in a pleasing way, not balancing each other, not providing a color scheme (loosely stated) that I am happy with, I will never improve the painting past this point.  

This is a critical stage. 

I'm asked often about using a toned painting surface.  As you can see in the photos of block-ins here, these are all painted on an untoned surface, linen on board to be exact.  That's one way.  I also sometimes tone the surface ahead of time and paint more directly and opaquely with out this same kind of a start.  Having many methods in your technique bag is never a bad thing.  

The other thing about beginning to place your Conceptual idea on the canvas in this way, is that it's a fluid situation, it can still be changed, moulded, wiped or continued at anytime.  The paint is thin, like a water color wash, nothing is locked into place yet.  This is the time to make the decisions...

If you normally get out the small brush or charcoal and begin to draw the little pieces of the composition instead of going for the large masses, try this way out, it might fit in some cases.

Thank you... Marc

These area few examples of slightly more drawn out block-ins.  In the one directly below, I began to use the middle to dark values that made up the road, weeds, treeline and buildings, to paint the negative shapes of the snow on the ground.  

Link to the nocturnes on my website.

Click here to go to the 2010 September Nocturnes from Life collection on my website. If you prefer visuals without the writing and commentary this should do it. Thanks.

Some recent work from earlier this month.

This first group are field studies that were painted in early May in Sarasota, FL on a short weekend painting trip. We found that our cold northern blood is not so fond of the HOT midday of Gulf Coast Florida. So the painting was best in the morning or afternoon. The rest of the time we did a lot of looking and exploring. Including spending several hours at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. The grounds there are spectacular to see and to paint.

The last painting is now in Charleston, SC at Coleman Fine Art. It is a studio painting of one of the bridges at The Magnolia Plantation in Charleston. Another spectacular preserved garden, like the Ringling grounds, that is a treat to see and paint.


'Botanical Gardens' oil, 10x8 © Marc R. Hanson 2010


'Pair of Paired Palms' oil, 8x10 © Marc R. Hanson 2010
Try saying that 20 times fast!!! This was painted in Myakka River State Park. Alligators...need I say more?


'Lido Beach Park Trees' oil, 10x8 © Marc R. Hanson 2010
There many racoons here. One was next to where we were painting and it was particularly bothersome. It kept coming down from it's palm tree and towards us. Very nasty looking critter.


'Springtime Walk' oil, 18x24 © Marc R. Hanson 2010
Just a pleasant spring light on the subject... wanted to paint it. Not to mention all of the gentle color and textures.

Day to Night

I'm going back in time a little bit, but I am in the studio working on longer term paintings. So to stay a little active with some posting here, I thought that I'd let a little 'kitty' out of the bag concerning nocturnes and the way I paint them. There is going directly to the source and painting from life, a requirement IMHO, and then there's using that experience to draw on to do work in the studio.

This isn't really a secret. Artists like Whistler, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, NC Wyeth, Harold VonSchmidt, Frederic Remington, Frank Tenney Johnson, Tom Lovell, Doug Dawson, and a myriad of other painters and illustrators from the past and in present have painted nocturnes from inside during the daylight hours. Most if not all of them had spent a lot of time in the saddle of a horse, or out observing what happens visually at night, in order to be able to render the effect of the 'lack' of light on the subject that they wanted to paint.

As a side note of interest... At night the rods ( about 120 million, the light and dark receptors ) in our retina take over from the cones ( 6 to 7 million, our color receptors). This is the reason that as it darkens our ability to sense color diminishes. Many scientists think that this makes evolutionary sense. At night is when the predators are out. In our early development as humans, it was very important to be able to see those critters, who were out there to eat us, in order to have a chance for survival. Seeing movement was critical, color not as much so.

Harold VonSchmidt, for instance, painted many, many illustrations and easel paintings of the old west, stampeding horses and cows, the cavalry and their scouts, and much more, at night with a very limited palette of either a blue or green dominant color scheme. For many of his paintings he used a palette of Ivory black, Viridian and Alizarin Crimson. Prussian blue and black with burnt sienna is another popular palette for nocturnes. These are very effective generic palettes for nocturnes due to our inablility to see much color at night.

'Cold Riding' - oil - 30x50 - 1954 Harold Von Schmidt


Painting only in the studio with a generic 'nocturne palette', without the experience of painting from life at night, however, presents the painter with the dangerous possibility of becoming 'formulaic' with the subject. Back when Remington was painting there was often a palette for nocturnes referred to as the 'Frank Tenney Johnson' palette because he had so perfected the luminance seen in the night sky. For an illustrator, that's fine. Their job is to communicate the idea of their client to an audience not necessarily of their choice. It's completely possible to make up a situation on canvas in the studio. To do that takes the right amount of skill, and they are skilled.

For a painter who is trying to paint a response to what they're observing in an honest, objective way, I believe that it's imperative that the work is based on direct 'on the spot' observation. Once that you've understood the principles of a particular lighting situation it is possible to use studies from previous, different experiences to make a complete and meaningful statement.

Just take a look at the quality of work that Frederic Remington did with nocturnes. He didn't stand outside painting a wolf staring at him in the moonlight. Yet it's totally believable as an image. And I doubt that the native Americans setting the prairie fire would have thought it a good idea to stand there and allow an artist to set up the easel either. He did use a new tool, flash photography, to capture some models and nocturnal reference. And he did do small sketches from life as a base for his reference.

'Moonlight, Wolf' 1909 Frederic Remington


'The Grassfire' (Backfiring) 1908 Frederic Remington


I've been enjoying painting the nocturnes for a few years now, both from life and in the studio from both life studies and from photo references. Another thing that I do and want to share with you, is to take daytime studies and convert them to nocturnes. I've actually done this a number of times and am going to show you a few here. This first image is my reference for the painting below it. I posted this same image in the recent post about the nocturne article.


'Palmetto Island Park' - oil field study, 9x12 © Marc R. Hanson '06


'Palmetto Island by Night' - oil - 16x20 © Marc R. Hanson '08

Another example are these two images. First one is a little field study painted a couple of years ago in spring. I used it as the only reference for the painting below it called 'Spring Night Light'. I'd been painting some nocturnes from life at this point and felt comfortable with translating day into night.


'Spring Painting' - oil - 10x8 © Marc R. Hanson '06


'Spring Night Light' - oil, 20x16 © Marc R. Hanson '06

In the following images I took the idea of this translating a little further and am showing a couple of examples. In both of these cases the only reference was photographic.

The point of all of this is that what we do as artists is make 'paintings', not duplicates of nature. I find this kind of challenge to be one that gets my creative juices flowing. From the source, to the reference photo or sketch, to the finished painting, the similarities between the two change. I move things, shrink, enlarge, emphasize, de-emphasize and employ any number of other alterations to make 'my' point. To me this is where the creativity in my work lies.


'Full Moon Barn' - oil 14x18 © Marc R. Hanson '06


Reference photo


'Winter Solstice Night' - oil - 20x24 © Marc R. Hanson '06


Photo reference